Category: Rock Island Argus

From the Rock Island Argus, July 24, 1914. By Henry Howland.

Oh, smiling lady, your jewels flash,
    Your furs are rich and your eyes are bright,
With a lavish hand you are spending cash,
    You know no want and your heart is light;
You look so glad and you seem so free
    From the cares that worrying people know
That I wonder, seeing your ecstasy,
    Who was paying your bills a year ago.

Perhaps he lingers alone somewhere,
    Or another may bring him gladness now;
The lines that are drawn by the hand of Care
    May be deeply etched in his aching brow;
Remorse may gnaw at his lonely heart,
    Or another may hear him whisper low;
But you, made up with consummate art—
    Who was paying your bills a year ago?

You do not wail o’er the cost of things,
    Whatever your fancy craves you take;
Your hands are laden with flashing rings
    And your fingers never from toiling ache;
You give no thought to the ones who shrink
    Where a chill creeps in when the mad winds blow;
Your furs are soft and your cheeks are pink;
    Who was paying your bills a year ago?

Oh, lady fair, in another year
    You may wonder how, in your careless pride
You forgot to pause and declined to hear
    The helpless who in their sadness cried;
You may sit alone where the light is dim
    And mourn the fate that has brought you low,
As you think sometimes with a pang of him
    Who was paying your bills a year ago.

From the Rock Island Argus, July 16, 1914. By Henry Howland.

A man prefers the one who makes him laugh;
    The cares that he must carry through the day
Are forgotten or diminished more than half
    If there’s just a chance to laugh along the way!
        But woman—ah, God bless her—
            How her heart does ever leap
        With love—true love and tender—
            For the man who makes her weep!

I like the maid who gives me cause to smile,
    I love the child that gives me little care;
Men praise the ones who keep them laughing while
    They bend beneath the burdens they must bear.
        But woman—ah, God bless her!—
            Her love is true and deep
        For the child that brings her sorrow
            And the man who makes her weep.

From the Rock Island Argus, July 9, 1914. By Henry Howland.

They give the devil hoofs and horns
    Who picture him with brush or pen,
So that whoever fears or scorns
    The dread arch enemy of men
May know him for a fiend, may know
    The cunning that is in his glances,
And, therefore, meet him as a foe
    However slyly he advances.

They err who have him thus portrayed
    So that all men may know him well;
He comes without a hoof displayed
    Or anything that smacks of hell;
He comes fair-fronted, with a smile
    That quickly rids us of suspicion
And makes us think him splendid while
    He guides us downward to perdition.

From the Rock Island Argus, July 6, 1914. By Henry Howland.

Pray sometimes for the succor that the mighty among us need;
Pray for the kindness needed by the led and the ones who lead;
Pray when the day is ended and pray when the day begins
For the strength you need and the guidance and the pardoning of your sins,
But know that the Lord who watches o’er peasants and priests and kings
Blesses in fullest measure the men who are doing things.

Pray when the light is breaking for wisdom and strength and grace;
Pray when the day has ended and the stars gleam cold in space;
But the day was made for toiling; let the monk in his cloister pray;
Out in the world is duty claiming your care by day;
God in the great beginning wrought with a mighty hand,
Pausing not till His glory spread over sea and land.

They are lost who mumble prayers when the sun is high,
Turning away from duty, fearing to dare or try;
Sitting in dark seclusion, selfishly asking there
Glory in heaven as payment for the zeal that they show in prayer;
Over their heads the gleaming sword of destruction swings,
While God in His mercy listens to the men who are doing things.

From the Rock Island Argus, July 2, 1914. By Henry Howland.

How dear to my heart is the old cider barrel,
    As fond recollection presents it to view;
The place where they kept it corked up in the cellar
    Is as fresh in my mind as it ever was, too.
The damp, whitewashed walls, the potatoes and turnips,
    The apples we’d picked when the weather was fair—
How well I recall them, how gladly I lingered
    Beside the old barrel deposited there—
The old cider barrel, the hard cider barrel,
    The iron-hooped barrel confronting me there.

Once armed with a gimlet, I went to the barrel—
    Dear father and mother had gone for the day;
I bored a small hole and slipped a straw through it,
    And ceased to be troubled while sucking away.
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
    Till things in my fancy seemed softly to blend,
And I couldn’t have told whether I or the barrel
    Was dancing around or still standing on end—
The old cider barrel, the hard cider barrel,
    The iron-hooped barrel that stood upon end.

Somehow I got out of the old whitewashed cellar
    And whooped and hurrahed and made merry awhile;
They say that my shouting aroused all the neighbors
    Who lived in a circle of less than a mile.
At last my fond parents came home from their visit,
    The things that ensued I shall never forget;
I acquired a hatred of hard cider barrels
    That long has been rankling and clings to me yet—
If all the hard cider were spilled in the sewers
    I’d look on the waste and be free from regret.

From the Rock Island Argus, June 29, 1914. By Henry Howland.

The preacher looks out over empty pews,
    The scholar sits unnoticed and alone;
The poet, collarless and needing shoes,
    Sings soulfully, unheeded and unknown.

The actor who was born to grace the stage
    Reads splendidly the lines penned by the bard,
But no one notices his noble rage,
    He is a creature robbed of all regard.

The artist who has striven well and long
    Walks through the empty gallery and sighs;
His canvases attract no eager throng,
    And hunger dulls the luster of his eyes.

The halls of art are desolate and drear,
    The sacred lamp of learning feebly glows;
Round roped arenas people wildly cheer,
    Or overcrowd the moving picture shows.

From the Rock Island Argus, June 22, 1914. By Henry Howland.

A Chicago businessman says that no business man could live up to the principles of the golden rule.

“Oh, let’s have done with the Golden Rule,
    For it isn’t business;
It may do for the dreamer still or the fool,
    But it isn’t business.
Let the poet sing on of brotherly love,
    And the joy that is earned through being kind;
Let the preacher prate on of glory above—
    That will do for the meek and the lame and the blind,
        But it isn’t business.

“You may fail, if you please, to gouge where you can,
    But it isn’t business;
You may hate to bear hard on another man,
    But it isn’t business!
You may scorn to undo one who’s weaker than you,
    And seek no more than you’ve earned,
You may treat other men as you’d have them treat you,
    But, beaten and poor, at last you’ll have learned
        That it isn’t business.”

Has it come to this? Must we deem it so?
    Then adieu to business!
Let us back to the fields and the plow and the hoe,
    And have done with business.
Yet, because some weeds have grown rank and tall
    Shall we say no flowers shall bloom again?
There is greed, but it hasn’t engulfed us all,
    And honor is still in the hearts of men
        Who are doing business.

From the Rock Island Argus, June 20, 1914. By Henry Howland

She railed at the man who had wooed her, because
He was not such a man as another man was;
She scolded him over the teacups and when
The market went wrong she scolded again;
She complained when he smoked, it was sinful, she said;
She complained when he took up his paper and read;
Each day she complained that his love had grown cold
And she sighed to be loved as he loved her of old;
She envied her neighbor and murmured, “Ah, me!
Her husband still loves her! How happy I’d be
To be loved as she is, to be cherished—alas!
How our idols are broken, how soon the dreams pass!”

Her neighbor, so blessed and so cherished, had praise
For him that so loved her; in many glad ways
She showed that she thought him exalted and wise;
She flattered him fondly; she watched with glad eyes
To see him approaching, to greet him at night;
She brought his cigar and she gave him a light;
When he made a mistake, as the wisest may do,
It was never his fault, that she told him she knew.
She was satisfied just as he was; she would not
Have him changed by the very least tittle or jot.
And through days that were fair and through days that were gray
She loved and was loved and went singing away.

There is nothing more sure, more absolute than
That no woman can scold love into a man.

From the Rock Island Argus, June 13, 1914. By Henry Howland.

No snow-capped mountains may be seen
    From where I sit and work away;
No meadows that are wide and green
    Delight my soul from day to day;
I walk beneath no spreading trees
    Nor sit beside a sparkling pool,
But there is a delightful breeze
    That serves to keep me calm and cool.

All day I hear the city’s roar,
    The room I occupy is small,
And when I let my fancy soar
    It bumps against a lofty wall;
Instead of scents of new-mown hay,
    I sniff the fumes of gasoline,
But cooling breezes all the day
    Assist me to remain serene.

I may not sit upon a fence
    While watching busy harvest hands;
Each morning early I commence
    The work necessity demands.
But while I strive with all my might
    To do my part as best I can,
I hear with undisturbed delight
    The hum of my electric fan.

Let others hurry far away
    In search of scenes that may be fair,
Or in the harvest fields all day
    Attempt to rid their souls of care.
My brow is kept from burning by
    Cool breezes wafted from a shelf—
By soothing, friendly zephyrs I
    Can regulate to suit myself.